Pedagogical content knowledge van leerkrachten wiskunde en gedragswetenschappen: Een verkenning van overeenkomsten en verschillen

The notion pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was introduced by Shulman (1986, 1987) and refers to the knowledge that teachers use to support students' learning of a particular subject matter, taking into account specific characteristics of the students and the context. The present study investigates mathematics teachers' and social studies teachers' PCK of respectively the normal distribution and the nature-nurture debate. Additionally, the study aims at a comparison of the PCK of mathematics and social studies teachers and to unravel to what extent the way in which teachers think about teaching their subject is influenced by the subject they teach. Based on the conceptualization of PCK by Loughran, Berry and Mulhall (2012), semi-structured interviews were conducted with four mathematics teachers and with four social studies teachers, teaching the same students in upper secondary school. The interpretative analysis of the data shows both remarkable differences (e.g. in the choice and the justification of the learning objectives) and some similarities (e.g. in the evaluation of the learning content) between mathematics teachers' and social studies teachers' PCK. Finally, notable differences in the PCK of teachers teaching the same discipline are also illustrated.